


Our story is a fable

by deviltakehimback



Series: AAU Family: Berena and the Fletchlings [2]
Category: Holby City
Genre: Other, berena - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 04:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8148505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deviltakehimback/pseuds/deviltakehimback
Summary: Bernie is going to the Ukraine, but she's still helping mind the Fletchlings. She figures out a way to help the little one, Ella, understand what's about to happen. Part of the AAU Famfic series. Bernie reads a bedtime story for a sleepy Fletchling.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the same universe as my other fic _[Scalpel Scuffle Princess Pram](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8072752)_.

Berenice Griselda Wolfe had been called an awful lot of things when she was in school, so many of them spun from her middle name. Plenty of them based on her first name, too.

Wolfe, though, that was _impressive_. She took that in her stride, turned it _into_ her stride quite early on. The other names weren’t as easy to reclaim.

\- - -

 

Another night with Fletch in hospital, another struggle to get the children to sleep. She had managed to get Theo to settle, and Serena was down in Mikey’s room for a chat before lights out. Evie was staying up for a little while, finishing off her homework downstairs.

Bernie almost regretted starting the trend of reading them bedtime stories. Ella wouldn’t settle for her at all if she didn’t read them something.

They’d sat the kids down at dinner and told them about her secondment, passing it off as a sort of holiday. Three days out from flying to Kiev and full to the brim with pizza, Bernie didn’t feel like reading any bedtime stories from Ella's collection.

She had a better idea.

\- - -

 

Bernie pulled the covers over Ella, who was sitting up in bed and refusing to wriggle down, silently adamant in her request for a story.

“Have you ever heard of Grizzly Bear?” Bernie asked, tilting her head to get closer to Ella’s level as she sat down next to the little one. Ella shook her head, puzzled. Bernie wasn’t holding a story book.

“Grizzly Bear was a big bear who lived in a big forest. She had cubs, but they were all grown up, so she lived on her own. Every night she slept on a bed of moss. Every day, she wandered in the forest to look for food. One day, she found a cave with lots of cans of soup and other snacks in it. She found another bear, Brown Bear, living there.”

“Brown Bear’s cubs were grown up too, and she lived in the cave alone. She liked it there. It was safe and it kept her warm. She had collected lots of cans of soup and other goodies, taken from walkers in the woods when they'd left their cars at a nearby campsite. Brown Bear offered Grizzly Bear some soup. It was the best thing Grizzly Bear had ever had, the yummiest vegetable–“

“Ew no...” Ella wrinkled her nose, squirming in disgust.

"–the yummiest chicken soup," Bernie continued, and Ella nodded her approval, "that she'd ever had. She returned to the cave every day, and she and Brown Bear became great friends. They’d play in the grass near the cave, and they’d drink fresh water from a little stream nearby. Before sunset, Grizzly Bear would walk all the way back to her usual spot in the forest.”

“One day, Grizzly Bear woke up to a deep fog, all around the forest. Winter had arrived.” Ella gasped, eyes wide and searching Bernie’s face for clues about Gizzly Bear’s fate.

“What happened next?”

“Well, Grizzly Bear tried to make her way to the cave, but she lost her way. So, she had to hibernate in the cold, cold woods. She was very strong because of all the soup she’d been eating, and all the food that Brown Bear had shared with her. And so she found a comfy spot under the roots of some very big trees, and she lay down to sleep for the winter.”

“That sounds cold...” Ella whispered, and Bernie knew she was worried about Grizzly Bear.

“It was. It was like living in a big freezer – but Grizzly Bear had lots of big fluffy fur to keep her warm.”

“After a long winter, Grizzly Bear woke up and felt very hungry, and very sad. She didn’t know where she was. The snow had melted around her and there was a big rumble in her tummy.” Bernie reached down to tickle Ella's stomach lightly, and Ella squealed in delight.

“And then?”

“Then Grizzly Bear got up, and she started to walk. She knew she'd be able to find her way back to Brown Bear if she tried really, really hard and followed her nose.” Bernie made a show of sniffing, burying her nose in Ella’s hair and breathing in deeply.

“She walked for three whole days, sometimes walking in circles. On the fourth day, she heard something new. Not the birds, singing in the trees. Not the water, babbling in a stream.”

“What’d she hear?”

Bernie reached a hand behind her, and knocked on the wooden headboard three times.

“She heard the sound of a soup can being hit off a rock,” she continued, knocking on the headboard as she went. “Grizzly Bear ran towards the noise, getting closer and closer until it stopped all of a sudden. Grizzly Bear looked around her. Finally, she saw Brown Bear, who was standing just outside the cave with an open soup can. Brown Bear took a big gulp of soup, and then looked up and saw Grizzly Bear.”

“Grizzly Bear ran up to the mouth of the cave and hugged Brown Bear.”

"I thought you were never coming back!" said Brown Bear.

"I thought I was lost forever!" said Grizzly Bear.

"Well, you're not going anywhere again," said the brown bear. "You're staying right where you are."

“And Grizzly and the brown bear lived together in that cave from that day forward, never leaving one another's side.” Bernie clasped her hands together, a sign that the story had come to an end.

"Did they live hap... happily ev' after?" Ella looked up at Bernie with drooping, tired eyes. Bernie felt the question deep in her chest. She wanted to say that they did.

“What do you think?” she asked, pushing loose strands of hair behind Ella’s ear.

“I think they did...” Ella’s words trailed off into a yawn as she shuffled down in the bed.

“Well then they did,” Bernie said, willing herself to believe it. She stood from the bed and gave Ella space to settle in under the covers.

“And sometimes, their own cubs would come to visit them, and they'd get up to all sorts of exciting adventures. But that's a story for another night..."

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How much had Serena heard?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot thank **@phantomunmasked** enough for help with this - beta extraordinaire and prodder of thoughts!

Mikey had been quiet since dinner. Too quiet, if Serena was being honest.

Bernie was settling Theo into the cot in Raf’s room down the hall, and so Serena knocked lightly on Mikey’s door. Nothing. She knocked again.

She thought she heard some sort of affirmative grunt, and so pushed down the handle to enter. The room was dark. Mikey was lying down in bed, but Serena knew he wasn’t sleeping. Nor had he been trying to sleep.

“Mind racing?” She said as she stepped into the room, standing in a pool of light filtering in from the hallway. She watched him shuffle under his blanket, lifting himself up on his elbow to face her.

“Why’s she leaving?” Mikey asked, and to Serena he sounded unbearably small; Serena knew exactly how he felt.

Serena also knew she could not properly answer his question. Their joint conversation with the Fletchlings over dinner had been sobering at best. At worst, it had given them both a damn good idea of what it looked like when a child’s heart broke. Multiplied by three. Theo likely wouldn’t have a clue that the blonde food-giving nappy-changer had even gone anywhere. Theo was the lucky one. The rest of them would feel Bernie’s absence to the core, Serena included.

“She’s been offered a job,” Serena said, quietly, moving closer to his bed. She sat lightly on the edge, feet planted into the carpet to steady herself.

“But she has a job here.”

He wasn’t wrong. He was rarely wrong, in fact, headstrong and only too willing to fight his corner. Not that this reminded Serena of anyone else in particular.

“That is true, Mikey,” she said, teasing the words out, treading carefully over the many inadequate ways of explaining this to him.

“You know how you came up here after your dinner, and closed the door?”

She thought she saw him nod, and so she continued.

“Sometimes... sometimes you just need to spend some time alone,” she explained. “Where you don’t have to talk to anybody else, and you can think about things.”

For instance, Serena would be going home later that evening, cracking into a bottle of red with a good vintage and most likely rocking herself back and forth until she fell asleep. What better way to grieve the loss of someone with the nerve to dawdle before leaving. The real goodbye was yet to come.

“It sounds like they really need her help over there, too,” she said, honestly, because if anyone could set up a trauma unit it was Bernie Wolfe.

“What about us?” Mikey asked, fighting to keep his voice quiet. “What if we need her?”

“You’re stronger than you think,” Serena said, reaching out to ruffle his hair. “She’ll be back before you know it. It’ll be like she never went anywhere.”

She tried to pour sincerity into every word, though she was finding it difficult to believe them. 

“And I’ll make sure she brings you back presents.” She winked at him then, forcing what she hoped would look like a genuine smile. 

He’d seemed agreeable to that, still young enough to be fooled by a little bit of bribery. Serena missed the days when she could be so naïve. 

She patted him on the head again, willing him to get some rest. He slumped down towards his pillow, elbow no longer supporting his weight.

“Get some sleep, Monkey,” she whispered, wishing him sweet dreams as she made her way back out to the hall.

She slipped noiselessly past the door to the girls’ room, skipping the dodgy wooden board on her way back to check on Theo.

 

\- - - 

 

Bernie waited until Ella was fully dozing before hopping to her feet, socks muffling the sound of her movement. Dimming Ella’s bedside lamp, she picked up the white receiver for Theo’s monitor. He seemed to be sleeping soundly, as nothing but a light crackle came over the waves, but Bernie thought she heard a creak in the floorboard out in the hall.

Wary of waking Ella but intent on investigating the source of the noise, Bernie stepped on tiptoe out into the hall, and pulled the door quietly behind her.

Serena was waiting on the landing, her back up against the wall and her arms folded across her chest. She looked as though she’d been crying. 

"Good evening, Grizzly," she whispered, eyes decidedly wet and focused on a point above Bernie’s head.

“What?” asked Bernie, looking down at the little walkie-talkie in her hand. How had she not noticed until now that the two-way setting was on? What had Serena heard? She flicked the switch so their conversation would not disturb the little one, thankful she hadn’t already woken him. 

“I went to check on Theo and heard your muttering over the monitor,” Serena said, swallowing hard, still not daring to look at Bernie. 

"How much did you-"

"Enough," she said and then, after a moment's silence, "You do a good impression of me." Her voice was thick, cracked. Bernie shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She had now made Serena cry multiple times in one week, since she’d broken the news of her decision. She felt like she deserved a good slap across the face.

"Serena, I..."

"Don't. I hope she's right. 

"Who?"

"Ella,” said Serena, nodding in the direction of the girls’ room. “About the happy ending. And you tell it so well..."

Bernie had wanted to keep the tone between them a little lighter than this, to avoid emotional breakdown at all costs before she left. Lest she break, or break someone else.

"One of my many talents,” she said, hoping a dodgy joke might rattle a laugh out of Serena. “Though not a hugely effective party trick."

Serena wasn’t having any of Bernie’s attempts at humour.

"Ah and what is your party trick then, if not a disappearing act?"

"Usually the Heimlich manoeuvre, actually,” said Bernie, weakly, trying to ignore Serena's jibe and the resulting sting that flared in her chest. “You?"

"That would be necking two bottles of wine and still being able to walk in a straight line."

Bernie wanted to laugh, to enjoy Serena’s wit, but the mood wasn’t right.

“Is that it?” Serena said suddenly, her low voice and fiery eyes piercing through Bernie. “A good moral lesson and everything will fall back into place?”

“Serena, that’s not what–“

“If you say a single word about a hare, or a tortoise, I will throw you down the stairs myself.”

Serena did not need any assistance in the patience department, though she was beginning to think she needed a thorough cardio exam. And a stiff drink.

“I never said our...” Bernie trailed off as Serena turned to make her way downstairs, her steps silent. Bernie followed, restraining herself from grabbing at Serena’s hand as they reached the landing below.

“I never said it was a fable.”

Serena’s nostrils flared but her response got lost as Evie walked out from the kitchen, schoolbag slung loosely over her shoulder.

“Is Ella asleep?” she asked them both in a whisper, smiling a little as they nodded back at her. She wouldn't notice the tense notes in their features; they’d both been practicing careful omission with their own children for years.


End file.
